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Cripe9/28/2005
Hosp., 554 A.2d 757, 761-62 (Conn. App. Ct. 1989); Beye v. Bureau of Nat. Affiairs, 477 A.2d 1197, 1202-03 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1984), cert. denied, 484 A.2d 274 (1984). But see Whitt v. Harris Teeter, Inc., 614 S.E.2d 531 (N.C. 2005), overruling Whitt v. Harris Teeter, Inc., 598 S.E.2d 151 (N.C. Ct. App. 2004); Welsh v. Commonwealth Edison Co., 713 N.E.2d 679, 683 (Ill. Ct. App. 1999) (citing Hartlein v. Illinois Power Co., 601 N.E.2d 720, 730 (Ill. 1992) (noting that Illinois courts have found constructive discharge is not an actionable concept largely due to the Illinois Supreme Court's lack of support for the expansion of the tort of retaliatory discharge).
In addressing why an employee who has only been constructively discharged should be allowed to bring a claim for retaliatory discharge, the California Supreme Court explained that " lthough the employee may say, 'I quit,' the employment relationship is actually severed involuntarily by the employer's acts, against the employee's will. As a result, a constructive discharge is legally regarded as a firing rather than a resignation." Turner, 876 P.2d at 1025. The Michigan Supreme Court has indicated that once an individual has established that he was constructively discharged, he is treated as if his employer actually fired him. Jacobson v. Parda Fed. Credit Union, 577 N.W.2d 881, 886 (Mich. 1998). The court stated that in such a situation, the law would not "differentiate between employees who were constructively discharged and those who were actually discharged." Id.
I believe that the Wisconsin Supreme Court's reasoning in Strozinsky, with regard to the constructive discharge doctrine, is persuasive and should be adopted in Indiana. In that case, Strozinsky resigned from her position as payroll clerk for the School District of Brown Deer after she and her supervisors disagreed about the tax withholdings from a bonus check that belonged to one of her supervisors. Strozinsky alleged that her supervisors instructed her to not withhold taxes from the check, and that if she had done this she would have violated both a Wisconsin statute and federal tax law. Strozinsky later filed a common law claim for wrongful discharge in which she asserted that she was forced to resign because of her efforts to comply with the law. The School District filed a motion for summary judgment, which the trial court granted. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed, and the School District appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court first considered whether Strozinsky identified a public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine that would allow her to bring a claim for wrongful discharge. The court held that Strozinsky could bring a claim for wrongful discharge under the public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine because she had identified a well-defined public policy in both a Wisconsin and a federal statute. Strozinsky, 614 N.W.2d at 447.
The court next considered whether the constructive discharge doctrine should apply to a common law claim for wrongful discharge, and, ultimately, "whether a cause arising from a resignation can be actionable as a wrongful discharge. . . ." Id. at 460. The court began by noting that generally an employee who resigns cannot pursue a claim against his employer for wrongful discharge. Id. at 461. Despite this, many courts have concluded that an employer should not be allowed to escape liability when he has forced an employee to resign. Id. In an attempt to explain why an employer might try to force an employee to resign, the court stated that '" ctual discharge carries significant legal consequences for employers, including possible liability for wrongful disc
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